OT: Former UM Transfer Austin White wanted by police

A sad update on this kid. His dorm roommate was arrested for manufacturing and delivering narcotics, possession of narcotics and maintaining a drug house, so I can't imagine his charges are much better. Had some promise coming into UM, but flamed out here and looks like he will likely not be on CMU's team for long.

Comments

I understand that this is public knowledge, but must we run a kid through the mud because he happened to accept a scholorship here for one year and then go back home? I mean there may very well be many among us who have legal issues that will never be put up for public trial. This is a stretch in my opinion. Let the kid be.

I met the man in a Big Boy on the way back from a fun trip to Mt. P. He seemed like a fine kid. Just that. A young man who happened to be gifted with athletic ability we all dream of. He shouldn't be cursed to have all of his faults amplified because of that. I fucked up so many times in undergrad and thankfully I wasn't under a microscope because I was blessed with athletic ability in a sport that was popular.

Do you think that all troublemaking students and citizens are going to make trouble in a Big Boy? I don't get the logic. I'm sure all kinds of pricks and criminals have been capable of keeping their behavior in check for visits to diners, even Mark Dantonio.

"I met him once in a restaurant and he wasn't a douchebag for the 20 minutes when I was around, so he must be a decent kid."

Protip: if you don't want people talking about you getting charged with manufacturing and delivering narcotics, possession and maintaining a drug house, maybe you should try not to get charged with manufacturing and delivering narcotics, possession and maintaining a drug house.

I'm no lawyer, but could it be that he was a renter at a house with numerous kids and one of them happened to have a grow closet? I could be wrong, but as we all know shit happens in college... shit we all regret, but shit that happens due to circumstance of being poor, young and naive.

That is very possible. I still don't know why it has to be posted on a blog that has 100,000+ page views per month given that he is not a Michigan student/athlete et. al. That is just my opinion. At this point he is just a college kid.

Public information dude. Yes it is in the news, I read about it earlier this morning. It is relevant because at one time he was on the Michigan football roster. The OP posted the article in a very straight up and non-flaming manner. It is a news story, period.

Austin White isn't guilty of anything yet, but there does seem to be a pattern here. To quote Tim Sullivan in mgoblog when White left the University of Michigan, "...it sounds like the decision was more in the hands of the program than White himself."

Maybe he should have chosen MSU over Michigan. If he could produce, he wouldn't have gotten kicked out of MSU for anything that didn't even make the police blotter. If his current "troubles" were happening at MSU, Mark Dantonio would be telling the press that White was just using the fish tanks to cultivate gourmet mushrooms for a cooking class in their Hospitality Management program.

Nonsense. The guy, who is not a juvenile, is a suspected felon who is evidently eluding arrest. The police publicly announced same, probably because they want the public's help in finding the suspect. And White was recently a Wolverine. In what universe is this not newsworthy? It's in the public's interest to know and discuss this sort of thing. That the suspected felon happens to be a student is incidental. If he instead worked a corner in Flint, would you still be concerned about his privacy? I doubt it.

So you've posted 4 comments now on an article that you clearly didn't read. The drug "house" was his dorm room, in which there were an estimated 6 or more fish tanks which were probably used to grow shrooms. I'm not saying I never had any narcotics in my dorm room back in the day, I'm just saying it's not hard to be a lot smarter about this type of thing, even at his age.

I am guessing you never shared a dorm room with a kid who was there to sell drugs. I knew them when I was in undergrad. I wouldn't rat on them either. Different things happen to different people is all I'm saying. It isn't as easy as you might think to do the "right" thing.

Yes... He went to Stevenson High School in Livonia. This is 100% the kind of kid not only he is, but his brothers too. My girlfriend hangs out with his group of friends, she also went to Stevenson. All three of them are spoiled douches. One of them ( dont remember which ) was kicked off the MSU football team for being involved with that infamous brawl.

How is it running him through the mud to post a news article about him? I was interested to see it because he was a former commitment and I went to the same high school, although many years before him. Since I don't read "Central Michigan Life" website too often, I would have missed this.

If he's going to get arrested for doing what he's accused of doing...I have no sympathy for him.

Make better decisions and you won't be on a Michigan message board --- or at least not for your bad choices in life.

If Austin White just won a Bill Gates/Microsoft Man of the Year award for doing something great in the community with technology...I'd hope he'd have a thread on this board as well. And if he did --- I for one wouldn't be telling people to let the kid be.

The choices you make in life have reactions and consequences...if you don't like some of those, don't do dumb shit.

There were warning signs when he was recruited. If you remember, some people 'round these parts (including me) were hoping Rich Rodriguez wouldn't recruit this kid due to his off-the-field behavior. In fact, I got nasty e-mails through TTB from people who claimed to know him well and they vouched for his upstanding behavior. And yet...he bounced out of U of M and got suspended at CMU, and now this.

It's not a hard and fast rule, but when it comes to recruiting, it generally seems that the phrase "Where there's smoke, there's fire" is accurate.

In high school, Austin White was a performer on the level of, say, a Drake Johnson, yes?

Austin White's departure from Michigan was almost assuredly a decision by Rich Rodriguez -- whether 'recruiting' Austin White was a mistake (in hindsight, yes) or not. In other words, the sorry case of Austin White doesn't help make a 'tolerance of aberrant behavior' case against Rich Rodriguez.

Personally, had Austin White gone to MSU, I'd have expected even louder howls about how 'Rodriguez is blowing up Michigan's in-state recruiting...'

You have previously made some interesting lists of recent-history players and recruits and their ultimate fates both in and out of the Michigan football program. My gut tells me that State of Michigan h.s. recruiting saw some lean years in the 2.5 recruiting classes that Rich Rodriguez managed. Talent was down, a bit, and what talent there was, was concentrated to some extent in players like Gholston (who was never, ever going to go to Michigan). But I haven't made a list (The List of Michigan Recruits Rodriguez Missed Out On) to prove it. I'm curious what you think.

Yes, Austin White was recruited by Jackson and Smith. But the ultimate decision about whether to recruit him is left up to the head coach. Rodriguez is responsible for making those decisions and for the actions of his coaches.

White was not as productive as Drake Johnson in high school, but White had more suitors.

Yes, it does seem to have been Rodriguez's decision to get rid of White, but that's somewhat due to his own choice of recruiting him. If I start dating a girl who is known to be a little off her rocker, then my choice of women is and should be suspect, even if I dump her six months later. That's still a waste of six months (and a scholarship, in this case).

Whether Michigan fans got upset about White heading to MSU is irrelevant. Michigan fans have proven to be overreactionary (as are most other teams' fans). Rodriguez recruiting White just to appease the fan base would be a horrible misguided notion. Of course, White would probably be excelling in East Lansing and fitting in just fine with their culture, but that's neither here nor there.

I don't think I necessarily agree that talent was down in the state. In the class of 2010, there were 7 Rivals 4-stars or higher. There were also 7 in 2012, 6 in 2011, 11 in 2009, 8 in 2008, and 13 in 2007. I didn't hear many people suggesting that talent was down in 2012, when the coaches were pulling in Jenkins-Stone, Funchess, Richardson, Ross, etc. The class of 2007 was clearly an outlier with 13 "elite" recruits, but those 2009-10 classes seem on par with what Michigan has produced in other years, too.

Some friends of mine coached against Stevenson every year, and they were sketchy when he signed. They would always mention his demeanor on the sideline when things werent going his way. The worst part is the young man we should have signed instead now has a Spartan tattoo taking up half of his torso.